Your young child is just starting to learn to decode and interpret symbols. Although you may consider letter recognition an important skill, be sure to keep the learning activities fun! Letter recognition is only one step in developing literacy skills and will not be fully mastered for a few years yet. (You will find more literacy activities in Chapter 11.)

ABC Dominoes

Help your child with letter recognition and problem solving with this twist on a classic game.

• On each index card, draw a line crosswise down the center.

• On each side of the line, print a letter of the alphabet so that the top of each letter faces the line in the middle. To keep it simple, you may wish to use only a few letters.

• Show your child how to match up the ends as you would with regular dominoes.

There's a “B” in My Soup

Help your child with letter recognition and awareness. Show her how there are letters all around her.

• Have your child pick out and identify letters in her alphabet soup or cereal.

• For a variation, give your child some dry alphabet cereal or noodles and challenge her to find certain letters. Perhaps you can help her spell her name.

Letter Collages

Here is a concrete way to help your toddler with letter identification and the sounds the letters make. Close supervision is needed when you are working with small objects.

• Cut your chosen letters from the poster board. Make them 8 to 10 inches high, leaving plenty of room to glue objects.

• Help your child select and then glue appropriate objects onto the letter. For example, glue buttons on the “B” or glue pennies on the “P.”